Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation?

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

god, if they exist, would probably be very disappointed in how some of us waste our wonderful gift of free will. It probably says more about the invisible man in the sky level of mercy that they haven't come down from on high to utterly destroy the organizers and practitioners of religion.

but then maybe again, the slaves are there to give the lovers of freedom something to be thankful of?

again back to your comment, 'are we here for each other'? ... even when being 'here' is to simply serve as a bad example to others?

a reply to: ClovenSky

They may yes, but I think if we 'are' God then any disappointment would come from us not some outside source. We are more critical of ourselves than anyone else, and I'm speaking for myself only here, but if someone out there was disappointed in me i'd tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
Would there be enough computing power to do this?

Before you answer, consider this: Let's say there was one "prime" universe (a real universe) in which beings are running this simulation of another universe (SIM1). That simulated universe might spawn simulated beings who become so advanced that they, too, figure out how to run a simualtion of a universe, and they do; let's call it SIM2.

Now, SIM2 runs for a while, and it also spawns simulated beings who become advanced enough to run their own simulation, SIM3.

So now the original programmers in the Prime Universewe have a program runing nested simulated universes -- i.e., SIM3 nested within SIM2, which is nested in SIM1. Howver, the only the "real" computer in the Prime Universe is doing all that heavy processing of running three different universe simulations

Let's say SIM3 also begin their own simulation (SIM4), and SIM4 does the same, and so on and so on. The original program may spawn millions (billions?, trillions? infinite?) of nested simulations, meaning that the real computer back in the Prime Universe would have to be powerful enough to handle all of those simulations -- maybe infinitely powerful.


...Or maybe after a while, the prime computer would just crash. Maybe we are the 400 bilionth nested simulation , and if we do one more thing to overtax the original prime computer, the whole system will crash...

...and "poof" goes our universe.

We can do that in real life with our computers. We have "Virtual Machines" with hypervisors or "containers" with Docker. You can run Windows 10 on a Linux system, then run a modern console game emulator in that virtual machine. Then in that modern console game emulator, you run an emulator for a classic console system.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
Would there be enough computing power to do this?

Before you answer, consider this: Let's say there was one "prime" universe (a real universe) in which beings are running this simulation of another universe (SIM1). That simulated universe might spawn simulated beings who become so advanced that they, too, figure out how to run a simualtion of a universe, and they do; let's call it SIM2.

Now, SIM2 runs for a while, and it also spawns simulated beings who become advanced enough to run their own simulation, SIM3.

So now the original programmers in the Prime Universewe have a program runing nested simulated universes -- i.e., SIM3 nested within SIM2, which is nested in SIM1. Howver, the only the "real" computer in the Prime Universe is doing all that heavy processing of running three different universe simulations

Let's say SIM3 also begin their own simulation (SIM4), and SIM4 does the same, and so on and so on. The original program may spawn millions (billions?, trillions? infinite?) of nested simulations, meaning that the real computer back in the Prime Universe would have to be powerful enough to handle all of those simulations -- maybe infinitely powerful.


...Or maybe after a while, the prime computer would just crash. Maybe we are the 400 bilionth nested simulation , and if we do one more thing to overtax the original prime computer, the whole system will crash...

...and "poof" goes our universe.

Ah but I recall in C++ you added one final command at the bottom of the program that kept that from happening, "rewind".

It resets the memory.

What would happen in your theory is somebody else's reality would cease to exist on the main server. That might be one crazy day for that universe. Maybe like the Stephen King book "The Langoliars", where the langoliars cleared up the world of the last second of happenings so the next second could proceed to exist.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

"Everything in the Universe is Mathematical,"

This is BULLSSS# We invented mathematics and use it to describe the universe the best we can. If one day we can describe the whole universe with mathematics it doesn´t means that the Universe was created mathematically, it means that we are able to describe it mathematically, nothing more than that.

Infering the reverse logic is dumb and dangerous to scientific thinking because you are assuming that we are creating the universe as we discover it and that is not the case. The Universe has been here for a long time and will be here long after we´re gone.

originally posted by: BotheLumberJack
a reply to: ClovenSky

They may yes, but I think if we 'are' God then any disappointment would come from us not some outside source. We are more critical of ourselves than anyone else, and I'm speaking for myself only here, but if someone out there was disappointed in me i'd tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine.

You have a working philosophy that I seem to like. We should not worry so much with what others think. I am only trying to make myself happy when the day is done, oh and the wife......

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

Our reality has not been play tested enough. It is not ready to go to market.

originally posted by: BotheLumberJack
a reply to: chr0naut

Super Symetry wasn't mentioned by these physicists. Don't worry about the grammar thing, I'm a recovering Grammar Nazi I understand.

Without Symetry, we wouldn't exist as we do, is what I got from this. If the laws of Symetry remained unbroken, we wouldn't exist. It would just be a universe of photons.

When the panelists were talking about symmetry,they were abbreviating the term because they were all familliar with the concept. They are actually talking about supersymmetry.

Iranian in there....... Ever noticing...?

originally posted by: ClovenSky
a reply to: BotheLumberJack

god, if they exist, would probably be very disappointed in how some of us waste our wonderful gift of free will. It probably says more about the invisible man in the sky level of mercy that they haven't come down from on high to utterly destroy the organizers and practitioners of religion.

but then maybe again, the slaves are there to give the lovers of freedom something to be thankful of?

again back to your comment, 'are we here for each other'? ... even when being 'here' is to simply serve as a bad example to others?

There is no free will. Neither determinism nor randomness, nor any combination of the two allow for it. So there is nothing to forgive and nothing to judge. Thus ,by virtue of this fact, all the Abrahamic faiths are false by the very basis of their description of God and how he judges or forgives.

The universe is naturally occurring simulation. Everything can be represented digitally because it is all digital at heart. The only thing that can ever emerge out of 'true nothingness' is nothingness, and the only thing that does not require physical basis is the Truth, the body of truth is eternal and requires no basis for existence. All that exists is the body of Truth, which contains all the digital patterns and their relations, within which all conscious beings and all existence lies.

a reply to: Justoneman

oh and the wife......

Entropic evolution usually causes that to end up looking like Minerva and the Centaur.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

Yes … in a simulation, what IS LOVE?

wtf. Love is incongruent....

originally posted by: CSweeney
a reply to: BotheLumberJack

Our reality has not been play tested enough. It is not ready to go to market.

Great answer lol. I think i'll decline my services after this one is done with.

a reply to: Fowlerstoad

Ah! Yes what is love? It's evol backwards, the opposite of love which is right here.

wtf indeedy. Love doesn't exist inside this place filled with atoms protons quarks and electrons. It resides inside the part of ourselves that is actual. And this place ain't it.

a reply to: chr0naut

Thanks for that, and you're right.

I think this is a theory kicked around due to The Matrix( a movie which never made much sense but was cool). It new and novel but also doesn't make much sense. But I can see where some people might want us to think its a possibility so we look that way and not at other things going on right in front of us.

a reply to: Dutchowl

This idea was the reason The Matrix was made into a Movie in the first place.

The book and the ideals for this came out long before Hollywood intervention.